I’ve been working on intersex activism for about five years now, and it’s been one of the most rewarding turns in my career. I’ve met amazing intersex adults, even more incredible intersex children, and listened to medical horror stories that would make your hair curl.

So it was an incredible, humbling thing to be asked to participate in the launch this past Tuesday of Human Rights Watch‘s landmark report on intersex genital surgery. Here’s a trailer of the full report, which is available for free online, and is a must read for anyone who likes complex tales with a devastating emotional impact:

Here is a video of the full launch event, featuring Kimberly Zieselman (interACT’s Executive Director, Eric Lohman (a professor who is a parent of a child with CAH), Lynell Stephani Long (intersex activist and interACT board member), and Bo Laurent (widely regarded as the founder of the intersex movement). My part starts at around 26:00 if you’re interested.

Thank you to the press who have reported on this subject and cast an important light on one of modern medicine’s greatest failures, including the AP, TeenVogue, and Reuters with more to come, including NPR affiliate KPCC, where I’m going to be on AirTalk today (2:39 EST/11:39 PST) with intersex activist Hida Viloria and pediatric urologist Larry Baskin.

I’ve been thinking about intersex for five years, and in addition to being rewarding, it’s frustrating to realize how much more needs to be done. Thank you to Bo and Lynell and Anne & Suegee Tamar-Mattis, and Morgan Holmes, and to the countless people who have been fighting this fight for twenty-four years, for sparking the spark so long ago, and for continuing this often exhausting, sometimes angering, but always important fight.

Things need to change. Here’s hoping that the tide is starting to turn.

I’ll be honest: When I first went out to agents with None of the Above, part of me worried that traditional publishing wouldn’t touch a project with an intersex main character. For one, it was impossible to write about intersex without talking about testicles and vaginas, and who wanted that? I mean, the word itself had the letters s-e-x in them, so goodbye, sales from people who wanted clean teen.

Even more worrisome to me was just how much ignorance there was surrounding the entire topic, and how many myths there were out there about intersex bodies. True story: One of my first beta readers was really stressed out while reading an early draft of NOTA’s first chapter. She kept on waiting for my main character to pull out her penis during the sex scene (N.B.: most intersex people do not have both a penis and a vagina).

I won’t lie. Sometimes talking about my book to prospective readers feels like pushing a stalled car up a hill. I was told point blank by one of my publisher’s sales representatives that my book was a “tough sell.” Later on, they clarified that it didn’t mean that book buyers weren’t picking up the book – in fact, indie bookstores have been crucial to NOTA’s relative success, and we wouldn’t be on a fifth printing if it weren’t for them. Rather, there was an activation energy of sorts when you told someone about the book, both because it required background info and explanation, and because transphobia—indeed, the phobia of any body that is different from the dominant paradigm—exists.

Times, of course, are a-changing, and the wheel of progress continues to turn. Largely because of the tireless work of organizations like interACT Advocates: Advocates for Intersex Youth, and OII (Organization Intersex International), intersex visibility increases every day. In the two years since None of the Above was published, these organizations have operated on shoestring budgets to increase intersex awareness. These are just some of the highlights of two years of intersex advocacy:

May 2016: Four intersex advocates, including myself, presented at the 2016 Society of Pediatric Urology meeting. As a result of the meeting, at least two surgeons postponed surgeries they had already scheduled on intersex children.

March 2017: interACT filed an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court, explaining why transphobic bathroom policies hurt not only transgender students but those born with intersex traits as well.

Despite all these advances, there is work to be done.

The nation’s been talking about bathrooms for a while now, and even though the infamous HB2 “bathroom law” was recently repealed, the compromise that led to its reversal also bans any additional nondiscrimination laws until 2020.

Emboldened by the recent presidential election, hate groups are thriving, including anti-transgender groups such as the one behind the so-called “Free Speech Bus” that is making a tour across the US. By creating a false equivalency between chromosomal sex and gender identity, the bus erases the existence of intersex people. The irony, of course, is that biology doesn’t justify bigotry—its diversity should promote tolerance.

This last election galvanized a lot of people to put their money where their mouths are. Organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Southern Poverty Law Center saw record-breaking donation levels. With upcoming budget cuts, it’s likely that things will be tighter for a lot of organizations. I will say this, though: interACT Advocates does more with less than most non-profits.

So when I say that 100% of the April royalties to None of the Above will go to interACT, know that if you buy a copy of the shiny new paperback—whether it be for yourself, a dear friend, or your local library—it will benefit an organization that is dedicated to shedding light on one of the human rights issues of our time.

I am over the moon excited to share with you the cover for the None of the Above paperback (coming to stores near you on April 4th!), with its shiny new blurb from Stephen Chbosky, author of the bestselling Perks of Being a Wallflower, and screenwriter for a little movie called Beauty and the Beast (#1 for two weeks and counting).

Paperbacks are exciting because their printing is not guaranteed – for many reasons, publishers will sometimes release some titles in hardcover only, which is tough for YA authors because teens are much more likely to buy a title that’s $9.99 than something that’s almost twice that. Book clubs are also much more likely to choose a book that’s in paperback… and hey, did I mention that Epic Reads made an awesome None of the Above Book Club Guide?

Over the next week I’ll be announcing a promotion to get book clubs to read NOTA – prize pack will include a Skype visit with your book club, free SWAG and a $50 Barnes and Noble gift certificate. I’ll also be talking about the strides made in intersex awareness in the past two years since NOTA first released, even as I acknowledge how much work there is still to be done.

The Hippocratic Oath that all physicians take exhorts us to Do No Harm. Yet, for decades surgeons have been causing their patients irrevocable, life-changing harm with well-intentioned attempts to “fix” intersex.

Imagine being a 16 year old girl who is told that they need surgery to remove potential cancerous gonads. Imagine not being told until after this surgery that you have to take hormones for the rest of your life or risk osteoporosis, depression and other menopausal symptoms.

Imagine being a 18 year old girl, about to go to college. Because you have something called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, you have an underdeveloped vagina – so your surgeon suggests something called a vaginoplasty in which intestine is used to create a longer vaginal canal. But the surgery goes wrong – postoperative scarring causes any sort of penetration to be painful, and only afterward to you find out that you could have avoided the surgery entirely by simply stretching yourself with dilators.

Finally, imagine that you’re one of the two girls above. Your doctors tell you that you’ll never meet anyone like you, so don’t even try. Your parents tell you not to discuss your diagnosis with anyone, not even your best friends – it’s too private, they say. It’s none of their business. When you go to your doctors appointments your mother can barely conceal her shame. Your father doesn’t go to these visits at all.

To imagine these traumas is to imagine being intersex.

Now imagine being able to save someone from these medical horrors – because it is in your power. Because the world is changing as Intersex Awareness increases, as intersex people gather as a community and use the power of their stories to change medical care doctor by doctor, surgeon by surgeon.

4. If you’re moved? Please consider spreading the word. Share this post, or the Buzzfeed video, or any of the other articles (hey, even Good Housekeeping has one if that’s your jam). Follow @interACT_adv on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook. DONATE to them so they can continue the incredible work they do on a shoestring budget. Tag someone you know who might not know what intersex is, other than a curiosity. Show them that the girl next door could be intersex, and that intersex bodies are beautiful.

Thank you, and remember to vote with your conscience on November 8th!!

I can barely believe that I’m typing these words, but last week Deadline broke the news that I have been sitting on since last November: None of the Above has been optioned for a TV series by Lifetime, with an absolute dream team writing and directing!

Back when None of the Above first came out last year, the reader question that amused me the most was “When are they going to turn it into a movie?” Because as much I believed in my story, I had absolutely. No. Expectation. That this would ever be an option (hah, see what I did there?). Even before the book came out, I was apprehensive that None of the Above faced a glass ceiling. My fears were confirmed when a publishing sales representative told me somewhat offhandedly, “your book is a tough sell” – because of the lack of awareness of what intersex was (I should note that another sales representative kindly reassured me that it would do “very well”).

None of the Above, I absolutely thought, would never have enough mass appeal to the point where Hollywood would come calling. When my literary agent told me that I had a film agent that was interested in shopping the book around, I smiled and nodded and did not for a second think that anything would pan out.

Which is why, when I got an e-mail from my agent last July saying that they had a production company and screenwriter who was interested, I freaked out.

I had a great conversation with the producers, and then the lovely screenwriter Liz Maccie, but even then I thought everything was still a pie in the sky (one of my MIL’s to-die-for pumpkin pies, maybe, but still a longshot). Despite their interest – and Liz’s husband Stephen Chbosky’s interest (fangirl alert!!) in directing the adaptation – it became very clear that there were still hurdles to overcome: they were aiming for a TV series, so even though there was a production company and writer, what they really needed was a network/studio committed to developing the project.

Sure, the TV landscape is far different and more accepting of LGBTQIA themes than even two years ago: Transparent, I Am Cait, Orange Is The New Black. MTV’s Faking It even features an intersex character, Lauren that is an exceptional representation (the showrunners worked closely with interACT youth). Even that, however, didn’t mean that a network would be willing to take a risk on a show revolving around an intersex teen.

Until they did. I was sitting in a room full of teens, wrapping up a visit with the Downingtown High School book club, when I got the e-mail: Lifetime was going to make an offer on None of the Above.

To get a sense of why I’m so excited that Lifetime is developing the story of my heart, you can read this excellent Hollywood Reporter summary of their upcoming slate, which talks about how Lifetime has become a real “fempire” (73% of their shows were written or directed by women), or read this fabulously in-depth Buzzfeed article on the Lifetime television renaissance.

This is not to say that there aren’t even more hurdles to overcome – the pilot script needs to be accepted, filmed, and then picked up as a series. But my little dark horse of a book has already traveled stratospheres beyond my expectations.

As I said on my Instagram post about the deal:

It’s a moment that I never dreamed could happen, at a time when our country – our world – so desperately deserves to hear stories of compassion, empathy and acceptance.

I’m keeping my hopes realistic but my fingers crossed. So stay tuned, dear readers, and thank you from the very depths of my soul for your incredible enthusiasm for the book of my heart!

I’ve been putting this post off forever, waiting for the time to upload all the pictures that have been held hostage by my phone, wanting to come up with the perfect ways to explain why I’ve been offline for a while, … Continue reading →